Choreography | Mesma Belsaré

Mesma Belsare_press 5_Greg Noir Photography.jpeg

'intense involvement...'

THE HINDU

Dance
Portfolio

Twenty-five years of choreographic practice rooted in Bharatanātyam — and pressing beneath it, toward what the body carried before any tradition claimed it.

SIREN

Concept, Choreography, Costumes & Soundscape: Mesma Belsaré

Performers: Mesma Belsaré and Ramya Shankaran

"Handsome sculptural moves...sleek costuming and terrifying masks conjured scenes of love and war."

Bachtrack · Carla Escoda · August 2026"

Four scenes — displacement, separation, loss, war — held inside a contemporary vocabulary rooted in Indian movement techniques. Drawn from poetry by Rabindranath Tagore, Robert Burns, Helen Neale, and Rudyard Kipling; music by Ravel, Keshavan, Pt. Bhavani Shankar, and Bejjanki Krishna.

Photo: Steven Pisano

THE HOURGLASS

Concept, Choreography, Costumes & Soundscape: Mesma Belsaré Commissioned by Kulture Kool, New Jersey

Our world is under pressure.

Drawing on the Indic concept of brahma-muhurta, the charged hour before dawn, The Hourglass imagines this constriction as a passage through which something new is emerging.

Five dancers trained in Bharatanātyam and Kathak move between classical form and contemporary physicality. This work exists in tension between training and transformation.

Premiered Summer 2026 · Athens · Rimini · Glasgow · London

Photo: Abhijeet Nakhwa

Mesma Belsare and Tau Dance Theater_Dance USA Fellowship 2023.jpg

SACRED GEOMETRIES

2023 · Co-choreographed and performed by Mesma Belsaré and Peter Rockford Espiritu Premiered at the P'AI Foundation, Honolulu, Hawai'i

Created during Belsaré's Dance/USA 2023 Fellowship with Native Hawaiian choreographer Peter Rockford Espiritu. Three days, two sacred sites — Keaīwa Heiau and Kūkaniloko.

The methodology: that indigenous knowledge systems hold a geometry that trained bodies already recognize.

Mesma Belsare_press_photo Gajen Sunthara.jpg

Carmine Bees

Concept, Design, Mask & Choreography: Mesma Belsaré

Commissioned by the Indo American Arts Council (IAAC), NYC

After Kurukulla: the Buddhist Goddess who bewitches without apology.

A deconstruction of classical idioms at the junction of verse, iconography, gender, and desire.

SHILPA NATANAM: THE DANCING SCULPTURES · 2010–2025 In collaboration with Dr. Maya Kulkarni

A fifteen-year body of work. Classical Indian sculptural forms — Chola, Mathura, Gandhara — alongside the Ajanta cave paintings are not reference points here. They are the choreographic source. The New York Times described the work as "a virtuoso number" (2018).

Repertory includes: Pāda Bhedāh · Mohini · Krishnakaranāmritam · Ardhanārīśwara · Narasimha · Jatayu · Medea's Passion · Plato's Allegory of the Cave · Kundalini · Kavacham · Chinnamastā

Published in Ballet Review: The Premier Dance Journal (2019). Presented at Battery Dance Festival, New York Public Library, La MaMa, Atlas Performing Arts Center, India International Center (Delhi), Kalakshetra Foundation (Chennai), New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, and internationally.

THE VERMIN'S WILL · 2016 Concept, Choreography & Costume: Mesma Belsaré · Consultants: Dr. Maya Kulkarni, Dr. Anita Ratnam & Dr. Robert Perinbanayagam ·

Drawn from the Śaiva Siddhāntam in Mannikavāsagār's Śiva Purānam and Jung's studies of the human archetype. An undefined being moves through the forms of tree, bird, and snake — held in the gravity of memory and attachment — until Grace arrives not as resolution but as dissolution.

EARLIER WORKS

Zan: Women in the Shahnameh (2010) · Museum of Fine Arts, Boston · Three women from Firdowsi's Persian epic: Shahnameh · AKSHAH (2010) · Movement stripped of the face; a shift from visible expression to pure presence · En-twined · The Ardhanarishwara as literary and musical motif · Unquiet Epics · After M.F. Husain's Mahabharata paintings · Fire to Ice (2004) · MassArt · Masters thesis; multimedia with video, sculpture, puppetry, live musicians Shilpa Nrityam (2003) · MassArt · First performance-based capstone in the institution's history

Performed (not authored):

Chaurapanchasikha | 50cantos (1998-2010)· Concept and Research: Padmashri Geeta Chandran

UMA (2006–2008) · Choreography: Hari Krishnan · Lincoln Center, Harbourfront Centre, Lincoln Theatre

One Fifth (2005) · Collaboration with Hari Krishnan · Wesleyan University